Trump just made an unprecedented, 'radical' change to the National Security Council

President Donald Trump
signed a presidential memorandum Saturday that removed the
nation's top military and intelligence advisers as regular
attendees of the National Security Council's Principals
Committee, the interagency forum that deals with policy issues
affecting national security.

The executive measure established Trump's chief strategist, Steve
Bannon, as a regular attendee, whereas the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence will be
allowed to participate only "where issues pertaining to their
responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed."

"The appointment of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical
departure from any National Security Council in history,"
Republican Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

"The one person who is indispensable would be the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, in my view," McCain added. "So it's of
concern, this 'reorganization.'"

John Bellinger, an adjunct senior fellow in International and
National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations and
former legal adviser to the National Security Council,
wrote on Saturday that the change was "unusual."

"In the Bush administration, Karl Rove would not attend NSC
meetings," Bellinger said. "According to former Chief of
Staff Josh Bolten, President Bush did not want to appear,
especially to the military, to insert domestic politics into
national security decision-making."

With his permanent seat at the NSC meetings, Bannon has been
elevated above the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, who was not
offered an open invitation.

"The CIA Director is typically invited to NSC and Principals
Committee meetings," Bellinger said, though he added that
President Barack Obama's list of invitees to such meetings did
not include the CIA director.

Donald Trump's executive order on Saturday established Steve Bannon as a regular member of the National Security Council's Principals Committee.AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto noted on Sunday
that the move was "certainly unprecedented."

"You're putting in someone who is not Senate confirmed and taking
out the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National
Intelligence, who need to be Senate confirmed," Sciutto told
CNN's Jake Tapper. "It raises questions about whose voices will
be most prominent about key national-security decisions in the
country."

Former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates told
ABC on Sunday morning that sidelining the DNI and the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was "a big mistake."

"Adding people to the NSC never really bothers me," Gates said,
referring to Bannon's new role on the committee. "My biggest
concern is that, under law, there are only two statutory advisers
to the National Security Council - the DNI and the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

"Pushing them out," Gates said, was "a big mistake." He added:
"They both bring perspective, judgment, and experience to bear
that every president - whether they like it or not - finds
useful."

A 'shadow National Security Council'

The Washington Post's Josh Rogin
reported before Trump was sworn in that Bannon, Jared
Kushner, and Reince Priebus comprised an informal "shadow
national security council" that "sits atop the Trump transition
team's executive committee and has the final say on
national-security personnel appointments."

Kushner is Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser. Priebus is
Trump's chief of staff.

"Bannon has been working on the long-term strategic vision that
will shape the Trump administration's overall foreign-policy
approach," Rogin
reported, citing transition officials. He "is committed to
working on the buildup of the military and is also interested in
connecting the Trump apparatus to leaders of populist movements
around the world, especially in Europe."

Trump with his daughter Tiffany and son-in-law Jared Kushner at a news conference at the Trump National Golf Club Westchester on June 7 in Briarcliff Manor, New York.Mary Altaffer/AP

The NSC Principals Committee will be chaired by retired Lt. Gen.
Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, and Tom
Bossert, Trump's homeland security adviser. Defense Secretary
James Mattis and Trump's secretary of state nominee, Rex
Tillerson, have seats on the committee, but they "begin at a
disadvantage," Rogin said.

They will be "fighting for influence in a team of strong
personalities who are busily carving up issues, making plans and
nurturing already close relationships" with Trump, Rogin wrote,
referring to Bannon, Kushner, and Priebus.

The secretary of energy and director of the Office of Management
and Budget were
also removed from the committee's list of "regular members,"
and the deputy secretary of state will no longer be invited to
every committee meeting. The chair of the Council of Economic
Advisers will not be invited even "when issues to be discussed
pertain to their responsibilities and expertise."

Unilateral moves

Trump already seems to be marginalizing the influence of career
officials with extensive federal experience at the Department of
Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of
Defense, and the Justice Department.

On Saturday, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City told Fox
News that he helped draft Trump's "extreme vetting" executive
order after Trump called him and asked
how to do a "Muslim ban" "legally." Officials told CNN that
the order was a unilateral move.

Department of Homeland Security staff, the officials said, were
allowed to see the order barring refugees from the US only after
Trump signed it, and National Security Council lawyers were
prevented from evaluating it.
The State Department and the DOD were also excluded from the
process, NBC
reported.

After seeing the order, the DHS interpreted it to mean that
green-card holders from the banned countries - who have already
been subjected to intense vetting - would be allowed to reenter
the US from trips abroad. But that interpretation was overruled
by the White House, which later said green-card holders would be
allowed in only on a "case-by-case" basis.

Iraqi immigrant Hameed Darwish with Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez after being released at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, on Saturday.Andrew Kelly/Reuters

"The policy team at the White House developed the executive order
on refugees and visas,"
CNN reported, "and largely avoided the traditional
interagency process that would have allowed the Justice
Department and homeland security agencies to provide operational
guidance."

As a result, the order was imprecise and open to interpretation -
and legal challenges.

The order "looks like what an intern came up with over a lunch
hour," an immigration lawyer
told
Benjamin Wittes, the editor-in-chief of Lawfare and a senior
fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. "My
take is that it is so poorly written that it's hard to tell the
impact."

"The president has created a target-rich environment for
litigation" with the order, Wittes
wrote.

Lawyers and civil-rights organizations were already challenging
the constitutionality of the ban hours after it was signed,
arguing that the ban violated the Establishment Clause of the
First Amendment by "explicitly disapproving of one religion and
implicitly preferring others."

Lawyers representing two Iraqi refugees who were detained at John
F. Kennedy airport in New York
filed legal challenges to the order, and a federal judge in
Brooklyn issued
an emergency ruling Saturday evening to stay the continued
deportation of travelers.

The ruling, a temporary emergency stay, now allows those who
landed in the US and hold a valid visa to remain. Federal judges
in Virginia, Massachusetts, and Washington also made emergency
rulings on various aspects of the executive order.